National Instruments Corporation

Specific Energy

David Mark Pierce

Perry C Steger

Dudley Wayne Fox, Jr

Andreas Peter Haub

Stefan Romainczyk

Helmut J Helpenstein

Guy Vachon Laborde

Maxim Mark Tomashevsky

Anthony George Roach

A method for improving the energy efficiency of a pump system. The method includes measuring an instantaneous power consumption of the pump system, measuring an instantaneous fluid flow rate of the pump system, and determining an instantaneous specific energy consumption (SEC) of the pump system based on the instantaneous power consumption and the instantaneous fluid flow rate. The method then adjusts the speed of a pump in response to the determined SEC. The above steps may be performed a number of times to seek a reduced value of the instantaneous SEC of the pump system.

Controlling pumps for improved energy efficiency

A method and system for a delta page protocol for caching, replication, and client/server networking. Measurement data may be received by a logger application on a first computer, and written to shared memory sections in a modular fashion, including creating one or more header records to indicate a changed status. Each shared memory section may be independently accessible by a trender application executing in a second computer. In response to a query from the trender, the first computer may send a single message, a delta page. The header record may be used to determine the changed status of data sections. A single write operation may store the data values in a memory of the second computer. The trender may then read the first plurality of data values. The trender may present the retrieved data or requested data on a display. The logging and trending may be performed substantially concurrently.

System and method for a delta page protocol for caching, replication, and client/server networking

A system and method for storing measurements. Each measurement may include bulk data and attribute data. The bulk data and the attribute data may be stored using different storage mechanisms. In one embodiment, relational database technology may be used to store the attribute data. Relational database technology may facilitate querying or searching on the attribute data. The bulk data may be stored in a database specialized for storing bulk data.

Optimized storage for measurement data

An improved method and system for high speed logging and trending of data. Logging of data may include: receiving data; and storing the data, and an index to the data, in a shared memory location coupled to a database. Trending of data may include: retrieving requested data from the shared memory location using the index of the requested data, and displaying the retrieved data. User configurable frequencies may be provided for various actions on the data. The data may be measurement data, including a stream of data comprising a plurality of entries. The logging and trending may be: (1) performed substantially concurrently; (2) implemented using shared memory templates. The database may reside on a first computer system, and the logging and trending may be performed on the first computer system or on a second computer system coupled to the first computer system via a network.

System and method for a shared memory architecture for high speed logging and trending

A method and system for modular storage of measurement streams using a hierarchy of stream-processing objects. A first application may log measurement data of a plurality of data types to a shared memory location on a first computer, independent of the data type. Both the data and an index to the data may be logged. A second application may trend the data substantially concurrently as the data is logged. Both applications may include a plurality of filter objects, including a hierarchy of stream processing objects, which may operate to log/trend the data. Trending may include: (1) generating a query; (2) determining the location using the index; (3) accessing the data from the shared memory; and (4) displaying the data. The data may be replicated to an archival database, independent of the type of data. The replicated data may be transmitted to a plurality of computers.

System and method for modular storage of measurement streams using a hierarchy of stream-processing objects

The system and method of industrial automation provides improved network transfer of data between nodes. The system comprises a plurality of computer systems which are interconnected through a network, wherein each of the computer systems executes industrial automation software. One or more of these computer systems interface to various hardware I/O devices for data acquisition. Each computer system is home to one or more client and/or server processes. Before data acquisition begins, every server process registers a plurality of time/quality (TQ) groups, wherein each TQ group is identified by a time/quality identification value (TQID), and wherein each TQ group represents a set of associated data elements. When a hardware I/O device generates data, a server process which is linked to that device through a device driver receives a block of data from the device. The driver assigns to the block a single timestamp and a single quality value. Using a real-time protocol, the server adds one or more blocks of data to a packet and transmits the packet to every client which has subscribed to the data. For increased network and computational efficiency, the real-time protocol includes compression techniques and is exception-based: only changed data elements, changed timestamps, and changed quality values are sent to clients. Both the clients and the server store the TQID for each block, so that the client can more efficiently update the changed timestamps and changed quality values for all data elements in a TQ group.

Industrial automation system and method for efficiently transferring time-sensitive and quality-sensitive data

The system and method of industrial automation provides improved network transfer of data between nodes. The system comprises a plurality of computer systems which are interconnected through a network, wherein each of the computer systems executes industrial automation software. One or more of these computer systems interface to various hardware I/O devices for data acquisition. Each computer system is home to one or more client and/or server processes. When a hardware I/O device generates data, a server process which is linked to that device through a device driver receives a block of data from the device. Using a real-time protocol, the server adds one or more blocks of data to a packet and transmits the packet to every client which has subscribed to the data. For increased network and computational efficiency, the real-time protocol includes compression techniques and is exception-based: only changes in data are sent to clients. The real-time protocol further employs a &ldquo;train station&rdquo; model for packet generation: a packet is only sent when it reaches a certain size or when a certain time has elapsed. The server determines if a plurality of clients are interested in at least a subset of the same data; if so, the server generates a multi-cast packet which comprises compressed data element values that are desired by each of the plurality of clients.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

David Mark Pierce